Animal Detective

Chapter 105: The Xiao Hong Case

Back at the door and window shop, the dog cages were already welded.

Then, the owner saw Tiger Stripes trailing behind Shen Xin and blurted out, "Holy crap."

"Hey, man, that’s the dog!"

He pointed at Tiger Stripes, his face a mask of disbelief. "How did you find him, and how did you manage to bring him back?"

Tiger Stripes followed Shen Xin at a short distance, as if it had been completely subdued by him.

The thing was, he knew this particular dog was fierce and aggressive, always running with a pack. Taming it seemed like an impossible task.

"Just got lucky."

Shen Xin didn’t elaborate. He asked the owner to use his three-wheeled vehicle to deliver the five welded cages to the guardhouse of the nearby branch station.

"You’re a police officer?"

The owner finally realized. He glanced at Black Panther and said, "Then that must be a police dog, huh? No wonder."

He’d been wondering how a dog as fierce as Tiger Stripes could have been brought to heel. It all made sense now—the stray punk had run into its natural predator.

Shen Xin just smiled without explaining and asked the owner to write up the invoice first.

It was only natural that Black Panther could overpower Tiger Stripes.

There was a significant size difference between the two dogs.

Shen Xin had already weighed Black Panther; he was a solid 67 kilograms.

As for Tiger Stripes, he probably had some German Shepherd genes, but German Shepherds only weigh around 50 kilograms.

This dog only had a bit of German Shepherd blood, had a leaner build, and was skinny from being a stray. Shen Xin estimated he weighed about 40 kilograms.

With such a weight difference, it was perfectly normal that he couldn’t beat Black Panther.

But Shen Xin still felt he had the potential to be trained as a riot control dog because he was very smart. His fighting style even showed a certain level of skill.

So he might be surprisingly effective when facing criminals.

Of course, even if he couldn’t be trained as a riot dog, he could be trained for other purposes.

’Smart dogs make it easier to increase their Favorability, which makes training easier for me.’

’Even if the training doesn’t work out in the end, I can deal with him then. It won’t be too late.’

Besides, he was a recruited stray, so there was no real cost involved.

While the owner delivered the cages, Shen Xin took the two dogs to a nearby livestock station to get them checked out.

Pet hospitals were a bit expensive.

Luckily, there was a livestock station nearby that also treated cats and dogs, and it was dirt cheap.

Crucially, it was convenient for getting an official invoice.

When they arrived at the livestock station, they caught the staff just as they were about to close for the day.

They only agreed to help after learning Shen Xin was a police officer.

The vet was a middle-aged man in his forties. As he treated Tiger Stripes’s bite wounds, he asked curiously why the police were dealing with stray dogs instead of just sending them to a shelter.

"This one, on the other hand, looks like a police dog," he said, glancing at Black Panther.

Black Panther wasn’t badly hurt, just a bite on his left foreleg.

To increase its Favorability, Shen Xin personally bandaged Black Panther’s leg under the middle-aged vet’s guidance.

It was simple. There was no need to clean the wound; just apply some anti-inflammatory powder and wrap it with gauze.

After he was done, it clearly had an effect. The Favorability level rose to 5 bars.

Meanwhile, probably because treating the wound hurt, Tiger Stripes bared his teeth at the vet.

"Quiet!"

Shen Xin immediately snapped at him.

Tiger Stripes tucked his tail between his legs and immediately behaved.

"Not bad. This dog is pretty scared of you," the middle-aged vet said, amazed.

He knew that strays didn’t have the best temperaments.

After efficiently treating the wounds—skipping the IV drip and just giving an injection—and getting the invoice, Shen Xin took the two dogs back to the branch station.

Behind the branch station was a small training field, which was normally used for practice.

Next to the field were two storage rooms for training equipment. Lv Youwei had specially cleared one out to serve as a kennel for the police dogs.

There was a lawn right next to it, which would also be convenient for future dog training.

After putting the two dogs in their cages, Shen Xin finally clocked out and left.

Back home.

Sun Zhao had given the order, so Shen Xin couldn’t very well go against his own team.

He searched for Bloodhounds on a second-hand marketplace app.

These dogs were said to have the most sensitive noses, excelling at tracking.

The Criminal Investigation Division definitely needed police dogs for searching for physical evidence and tracking suspects.

Unfortunately, it seemed that few people in the country raised this breed.

If no one was willing to own them, breeders naturally wouldn’t bother importing them.

However, there were two kennels in the neighboring Songpu City that bred Bloodhounds. Shen Xin contacted them, and their asking price was over ten thousand yuan.

The money wasn’t the main issue; the biggest problem was that training a puppy would take too long.

Shen Xin asked if they had any culled adult dogs.

As expected, like many professional kennels, they were unwilling to let their breeding stock’s bloodlines get out.

The puppies they sold were all neutered before being sent out.

And on the local marketplace app, there weren’t many unneutered adult dogs available. Even if there were, they were all small breeds like Bichons, Teddys, and even Corgis.

It looked like his only option was to wander around the dog market.

But the quality at the dog market was a mixed bag. A top-quality dog like Black Panther was a truly rare find, something you couldn’t seek out intentionally.

"Why don’t you try posting something online?"

Shen Xin and Ding Yuwei’s desks faced each other. Seeing Shen Xin’s lack of enthusiasm and troubled expression, Ding Yuwei offered an idea.

She raised her hand and said, "Just write a post asking dog enthusiasts to nominate potential police dog candidates. Who knows, maybe you’ll find someone like Black Panther’s owner who’ll just give you the dog to raise."

"Don’t be ridiculous."

Shen Xin waved his hand dismissively. Doing that would make it seem like they were trying to take advantage of the public, which wasn’t appropriate.

"By the way, what are you looking at?" Shen Xin asked.

She seemed to have been staring at it for a long time.

Ding Yuwei hadn’t had much to do these past two days.

Liu Laibin’s case was about to be closed.

In any case, based on the existing clues, the investigation was more or less complete.

The whereabouts of the two million yuan, in particular, had been basically figured out.

Shi Yanhua had also been notified.

Unlike Wu Zhicun, she didn’t thank the police by pulling out banners and presenting silk pennants when her cold case was solved.

According to Zhao Tianxing, when she was notified that the case was solved, her first question wasn’t about who the murderer was, but whether the money had been recovered.

Of course, Shi Yanhua was also startled to learn that the murderers were Li Weiqin and his group.

As the boss’s wife, she had dealt with Li Weiqin and the others quite a bit.

But she still cared more about the money.

When she found out the money had been donated to a fund for rescuing abducted children, she started cursing and screaming, demanding they return it.

Later, when she learned that Guo Chunping had left behind a house and cash totaling about one million yuan, and was asked to issue a letter of understanding, she flatly refused.

She said she would sign the letter of understanding, but only if they paid up. The house and savings were far from enough; she wanted Li Weiqin and his accomplices to compensate her with their own money.

Just yesterday, she had even brought Tingting to the branch station to cause a scene.

Fortunately, the case was solved now.

Before, the branch station didn’t have a strong standing, so they just had to endure it.

Now that the case was solved, if she wanted money, she couldn’t pin it on the branch station anymore. She’d have to go to the lawyers for Li Weiqin and his accomplices.

Anyway, once the case was wrapped up and handed over to the procuratorate, how the court would rule and whether Shi Yanhua would grant her understanding were no longer the Criminal Investigation Division’s concern.

Shen Xin figured Shi Yanhua would definitely issue the letter of understanding.

She was after the money. If she stubbornly refused to sign, she wouldn’t get a single penny in the end.

"The case file. For the truck driver, Xiao Hong," Ding Yuwei said, waving the file.

Shen Xin’s spirits immediately lifted.

Training dogs was a leisure activity, a way to add variety to his life, but solving cases was Shen Xin’s real passion. He immediately asked Ding Yuwei if she had found anything.

Shen Xin had read the case file before.

You could say it had all the elements that allow a case to go cold.

On February 16, 2011, the fourteenth day of the first lunar month, Xiao Hong was hauling a shipment along National Highway 319.

He was driving a 6.8-meter high-railing truck, carrying a load of cardboard. At 8:51 PM that night, he passed through Yaojia Village, ate at a roadside fast-food restaurant, and called his wife.

That was the last time he contacted his family.

His truck was later found parked on the side of the national highway, between Dazhang Village and Guanzhuang Village.

The national highway was busy with traffic. To be honest, if you park a truck on the side of the road, passing cars and people might not even notice you.

It was only when Xiao Hong’s wife couldn’t reach him and called the shipping manufacturer that an alarm was raised. The manufacturer thought Xiao Hong had run off with the goods, so they reported it to the police.

The report came in on the evening of the 17th.

The traffic police used the limited surveillance footage to determine the last known section of road the truck was on. They then patrolled the area and quickly found Xiao Hong’s truck.

Only then did they discover that Xiao Hong was dead inside the vehicle.

And in this case, there were no surveillance cameras in the immediate vicinity.

No usable biological evidence was left at the scene.

The estimated time of death was around midnight on the night of the 16th. There were no eyewitnesses.

The police determined it was a robbery-homicide. They conducted large-scale interviews and investigations in the two nearby villages and at the freight stations near the highway, questioning a large number of drivers.

But they came up with nothing.

As time went on, it was eventually classified as a cold case and shelved.